Shock and Awe

It's funny, in a way, that Tanya Friesen never had that a-ha moment - that signature sense of making it - until her senior year at Wichita State.

The Buhler native had already built a decorated career as a multi-athlete for the Shockers women's track and field team in her first three seasons.

But, as Friesen will admit, becoming a multi-athlete is anything but easy.

"If you look back from my senior to my junior year, you can tell how difficult it is off of performance," Friesen said. "I was up and down."

But she is producing on an even keel this year - at a very high level - and looks back Feb. 1, to the Varsity Apartments Invitational at WSU's Heskett Center, as the starting point of it all.

"The thing that sticks out the most in my mind...was right before our first indoor multi at home, I remember telling one of my friends I was going to run fast in the (60 meter) hurdles," Friesen said. "I was telling her I was going to run 8.70 (seconds) or 8.60 and had only run 8.90 that year.

"I had a feeling something was going to click for me and I ran an 8.67. Having such a successful first event kept things going for me. After that I had confidence."

Friesen ended up smashing the Shockers' women's pentathlon record at the event and continued her string of excellence up to the Missouri Valley Conference Indoors Championships where she won the pentathlon by setting career-best marks in four of the five events.

When it was all said and done, she was an all-conference honoree, a NCAA Division I pentathlon qualifier and part of a conference champion team.

The success didn't stop there.

Friesen is having a fantastic outdoor campaign and holds a handful of national rankings. On April 16, she was named the MVC's field athlete of the week following her dominant showing at the John McDonnell Combined Events at the University of Arkansas on April 8 in Fayetteville, Ark. Friesen smashed the Shockers' 20-year-old heptathlon record with 5,757 points. She set five personal bests in the process, running the 100 hurdles in 13.93 seconds; the 200 dash in 24.74; clearing 5 feet and 10. 5 inches in the high jump; hitting 19-11.75 in the long jump; and recording a 131-4 javelin throw.

Over the weekend, Friesen went out on a high note in her final home performance at the Track-It Buster Invitational. She won the long jump (19-6.25) and finished third in the 100 hurdles (14.14) and fourth in the javelin (133-9).

She's a surefire bet to compete at the Outdoor Track and Field Championship June 5-8 in Eugene, Ore. According to DirectAthletics.com, an official partner of the NCAA Track and Field Championships, Friesen is ranked fourth in Division I in the heptathlon and trails only Arkansas' Makeba Alcide, Arizona State's Keia Pinnick and San Diego State's Nicole Oudenaarden. She also sits ninth in the high jump and 14th in the long jump.

But who knew Friesen would reach this level of success?

Ask her coaches - Buhler's Willie Adkins in high school and Wichita State's Steve Rainbolt now - and they'll say they knew she had potential. But no one could've predicted the heights she's reached.

"She's continued where she left off in high school," Adkins said. "Strong competitor, was blessed with some talent and keeps on working. That's obvious."

Adkins and his coaching staff have produced a number of high-caliber college track athletes, including Kansas State decathlete Devin Dick. With Friesen, they didn't shake up her repertoire in track. She thrived as a jumper, twice a Kansas Class 4A state champion in the long jump (2008 and 2009) and triple jump (2007 and 2009), on top of being a multisport standout in basketball and volleyball for the Crusaders.

But the tools for her development were always there.

"She was very attentive and listened well," Adkins said. "I think she took coaching well. She also had a desire to be better and to be good. That combined with her spirited competitiveness.

"That was her forte."

Rainbolt was drawn to Friesen by way of her athleticism. Rare is the athlete that competes in all of the heptathlon's events (the 100 hurdles, 200, 800, high jump, long jump, javelin and shot put) in high school, so recruiting future multicompetitors often boils down to skills displayed in additional sports.

"We saw her play at a high school basketball game and we just knew she was athletic," Rainbolt said. "We just like it when an athlete has done other sports. We felt like it also helps that she'd already high jumped and she already long jumped."

Friesen, who also had a chance to go to Hutchinson Community College for basketball, took her lumps learning how to compete in the heptathlon's seven events.

Some she figured out easily. Her speed, Rainbolt said, helped her pick up the 100 hurdles and 200 while she had a natural throwing motion for the javelin.

Others have been a constant struggle.

"There have been parts of the heptathlon that have challenged her," Rainbolt said. "The shot put has challenged her. The 800 - which is odd to me because she's built like an 800 runner - she wasn't wired for."

"It's a big adjustment," Friesen said. "My freshman year, I remember talking to my mom a lot about how frustrating things were because they weren't coming as easily. ... I felt like I wasn't fulfilling my potential freshman year."

But things started to click, slowly but surely.

As a freshman and again as a sophomore, she finished fourth in the pentathlon at the MVC Indoors Championships before claiming third as a junior.

She had an even stronger resume outdoors, making the NCAA finals in the heptathlon as a sophomore.

Just watching her, Rainbolt could tell the wheels had stopped turning. She was putting everything together and letting it loose.

"There was no indication right off the bat that she could develop the way she has," Rainbolt said. "There have been - and it's this way with lots of athletes - there have been moments where I watch her and things are suddenly different."

She won the heptathlon at the MVC Outdoors Championships as a junior, returned to nationals in the event and took 21st.

She's done nothing but climb since. Friesen holds seven Shocker records (including the top scores in the pentathlon and heptathlon) and is getting ready to chase an indoor and outdoor sweep as MVC champs with her teammates on the women's track and field team May 10-12 in Des Moines, Iowa.

Then it's on to nationals.

After that, Friesen is just waiting to see what it happens. She has another year left to finish up her degree and has given thought to joining WSU's track club when her NCAA eligibility is up.

But finally, after four years, she knows how far she's come.

"I feel like - going into indoor and outdoor - I set goals before the year even started," Friesen said. "I felt the need to set even higher goals because I had more success than I ever imagined."